As was announced back in February, Jay Z (a.k.a. Shawn Carter) will be the first rapper inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame. The induction ceremony takes place next Thursday, June 15.
But it’s not to early to honor one of the greatest rappers to ever sling a rhyme.
Esquire recently wrote at length about the rapper’s rise to fame, describing Jay Z as “(not) a man so much as a region, one with its own weather, customs, language.”
Growing up in the dangerous “Marcy Houses” in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn, an eight-year-old Jay Z’s first exposure to music was the R&B records in his parents’ home—and then the rap he heard in the streets. He immediately started writing his own rhymes as early as 1978.
Below, RealClearLife has teased some of the most incredible facts out of the lengthy read.
-If Jay Z were a baseball star, his stats would be Ruthian. He’s sold multiple millions of records, won 21 Grammys, and has the most No. 1 albums as a solo artist (13).
-Business-wise, he’s founded a number of successful business, including the Rocawear clothing company, 40/40 Clubs, Roc Nation and Roc Nation Sports, and the Tidal streaming service.
-In his 193 solo songs, there are 902 instances of the word “like”—the majority of which are used to set up similes. (Compared to Shakespeare’s 154 sonnets, which only use “like” 30 times.)
-When Rick Rubin recorded the now-iconic “99 Problems,” he exclaimed to a member of the Beastie Boys of Jay’s style: “I’ve never seen anything like it. He doesn’t write anything down. He just kind of sits there, listens to the track, and then goes in and does it.” (Note: There is language in both the clip above and below that might not be suitable for an office environment.)
-Speaking of that famous song, Esquire writer Wyatt Mason notes something that most listeners probably don’t realize: that the hook in “99 Problems” was taken from an Ice-T track of the same name.
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![[L-R] Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck of R.E.M. at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois on July 7, 1984.](https://www.insidehook.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/rem-book-interview.jpg?resize=450%2C450)
![[L-R] Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck of R.E.M. at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois on July 7, 1984.](https://www.insidehook.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/rem-book-interview.jpg?resize=750%2C500)
![[L-R] Bill Berry, Michael Stipe, Mike Mills and Peter Buck of R.E.M. at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago, Illinois on July 7, 1984.](https://www.insidehook.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/rem-book-interview.jpg?resize=750%2C750)
